The Rose and the Yew Tree by Agatha Christie

A beautiful, upper class woman marries a working class opportunist, but his attempts to elevate himself lead to unforeseen consequences. A Westmacott novel.

More about this story

One of Agatha Christie's six novels written under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott, this is a tale of society climbing, when an opportunistic working class man marries an upper class woman. His grand ideas about his potential come with difficult consequences.

Here Agatha Christie revisits the somewhat darker themes of Endless Night, another story which involves a young man climbing the social ladder apparently unaware of the price of his actions. The Rose and the Yew Tree was a favourite of both Agatha Christie and her daughter Rosalind, who revealed in an article in 1990 that Collins, Christie's long standing crime fiction publishers, hadn't taken to the story at all. Rosalind writes "they hadn't been very kind about any of the Mary Westmacotts" so Christie took it to Heinemann, who would publish the last two Westmacotts as well.

The title featured on the Agatha Christie Memorial statue, erected in Leicester Square, London, in 2012.

This story has never been adapted.